The Unknown Woman (14 page)

She opened her hand. He saw the gold ring on her palm. He waited, thinking she might throw it into the water, but she stood there a few seconds, then slipped it back into the pocket of her jeans. The ring was still a problem.

On the return trip, they drove past the cottage, but no one was on the porch, so Matt didn’t stop.

Farther along the road, they passed a church and a small cemetery. “Can we stop?” Kerry asked softly.

He did so reluctantly, feeling that she had had enough emotional stress for one day, but he respected her request. He pulled into the neatly maintained driveway and parked under the shade of an oak heavy with moss.

“This may be the parish cemetery where Patti’s folks are buried,” she said when they got out of the car. She held out her hand to him.

Matt noted that they automatically held hands when they were together. He wondered if Kerry noticed.

“What?” she asked.

He held up their clasped hands. “I’m reminded of my sister. Since she was four years older, she insisted on holding my hand while crossing the street. At five, I rebelled, telling her I could do it by myself. She informed me if I got run over it would be my own stupid fault. Now I find I like holding hands.”

Kerry gave him one of her warm glances. “Me, too,” she murmured, looking away. “Were you and your sister friends?”

He felt a slight distancing on her part and resisted the urge to hold her tighter. “Yes. When I was in high school and she was in college, I’d call her when I had woman trouble and she’d explain the female psyche to me. Not that I always believed her, but mostly she was right. As we grew up, she became my best friend.”

“Sharon and I are close, too.” She hesitated. “I’m glad you had your sister. Everyone needs someone to connect to, especially if your parents aren’t—I mean—”

“I know what you mean, Kerry,” he assured her.

“My parents lived their lives as they saw fit. So do I.

If I’m ever blessed with a family, I want to be part of my children’s lives.”

She gave him a glowing look of approval, making him feel as if he was the wisest man in the world.

“Oh, look,” she said, pointing to a vault. “Ruoui.

That’s Patti’s family name.”

They studied the names in the area and found the graves went back several generations. “Almost two hundred years,” he remarked. “That’s a long history.”

“Yes, and Patti knew where their first ancestor to settle here came from, too. She told me she was related to Josephine Bonaparte. Seeing how far back her ancestors go makes me believe her story.”

“I wonder if she was the last of the Ruoui line.”

A shadow crossed Kerry’s face, darkening her eyes. “I think she must be. She had no siblings and her aunt hasn’t any children.” She surveyed the richly carved
marble and granite vaults. “I can envision Patti here as a child, walking with her parents and listening to her father recount dashing tales about their ancestors. It must have given her a sense of continuity, don’t you think?”

He nodded.

“And now that line is broken,” she ended somberly.

They continued strolling and reading the names, dates and messages engraved into the stones. At one site, they paused while Matt read the inscription. “His family hopes his journey proves fortuitous, wherever it may lead.” Matt grinned. “It doesn’t sound as if they have a lot of hope about where he’s going to spend eternity.”

Kerry pressed a hand over her mouth.

“What?” he demanded, seeing the amusement in her eyes.

“When Sharon and I were kids, we went to our great-aunt’s funeral. She was our grandmother’s only sister, and she was a stickler for manners and rather mean to us kids. When Nana dropped a handful of dirt on her coffin, Sharon and I recited, ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; if the Lord won’t have you, then the devil must.’ I thought my mom was going to faint from mortification, but everyone else, including my grandmother and the pastor, burst into laughter. I think that saved us from being grounded for life.”

The tension went out of his shoulders at seeing her back to her usual buoyant self. “My father,” he con
fided, “would have had a coronary if my sister and I had done anything like that.”

They laughed together in perfect understanding. It felt good. From that first odd moment when she’d come over to help him with the unknown woman in his bed, being with Kerry had felt good. He had a feeling if he let her disappear from his life he would miss something important in his future.

After reading a few more inscriptions, they returned to the car and headed for the city. Matt saw Kerry’s eyes held only humor and the nostalgia of gentle memories. Contentment filled his own soul.

B
ACK IN
N
EW
O
RLEANS
, Kerry kept an eye out for a parking space as Matt cruised the block around the hotel for the second time.

“There’s one,” she said as a car vacated a spot.

Matt whipped in and parallel parked with no problem.

“You’re good,” she declared. “I always manage to either run into the curb or have one end of the car sticking out into the street. There must be a secret to it that no one has told me about.”

“Most people don’t pull up close enough to the car ahead before they start backing up.”

“Aha, I knew there was something I’d missed.”

Laughing, they linked hands and went into the hotel. A man rose from a chair and came to Kerry.

“I need to talk to you,” Jason Pichante told her. He glanced at Matt. “Alone.”

“I’ll be in the suite,” Matt said after she gave him a nod to indicate she was okay to be alone with Jason.

Kerry didn’t miss the glance he sent the younger man, as if warning him he’d better not hurt her feelings.

“There are chairs over here,” Jason said.

He led the way to an alcove containing a tiny table and two brocaded chairs. From here they could look out on the street where Saturday night revelers had already gathered. By contrast, she noted, the hotel lobby, other than staff and a few people going through to their rooms, was empty.

She studied the younger man, waiting for him to tell her his reason for being there. His handsome face showed the ravages of grief. There were fresh lines across his forehead and darker circles under his eyes. The planes of his cheeks and jaw were still handsome and aristocratic looking, but they seemed leaner, too, more sharply etched.

“Do you want the ring?” she asked quietly.

He tore his gaze from the street scene and stared at her. He shook his head. “Keep it for your daughter. Advise her of the futility of loving a coward.”

“Is that how you see yourself?”

“It’s what I am.” He spoke without any visible emotion. “I wanted to tell you the truth of that night before I go.”

“You’re leaving New Orleans?”

“Yes. I’ve told my parents. And my fiancée.”

Her heart constricted at the word, and she thought of Patti, who had loved this man.

He took a deep breath. “That night…Twelfth Night…I told Patti about the engagement and the announcement that would be made at my parents’ party. She was stunned. I told her it wouldn’t make any difference to us.”

Kerry couldn’t suppress the tiny gasp his words caused. “You wanted her for your mistress after you married someone else?”

“Yeah. Some Twelfth Night gift, wasn’t it?” he said with a bitter laugh.

Kerry stared at him without answering.

He continued. “We were sitting in the courtyard here at the hotel. We’d been dancing, and she was laughing as some tourists stared at our outfits. After I told her of the engagement, she said she couldn’t see me again. She stood, ready to walk out on me, but I pulled her into my arms and started to dance. I asked her to let me explain.

“I told her the marriage was necessary because the girl’s father held credit notes from my father that he was threatening to call. The family would be ruined if…if I didn’t comply. Politically, it was a good marriage. Patti understood that.”

“Did she agree to be the third party in this arrangement?”

“No. She said if the engagement was announced, she would take that as the end for us.”

“Good for her,” Kerry murmured.

He stared out the window again as if seeing
another time, another place. “An old woman came through the courtyard selling flowers and herbal concoctions. I bought two bottles of love potion. Giving one to Patti, I challenged her to drink it. I said it would make her mine forever. She told me to be careful, that it might make me forget the politically correct marriage and bind our hearts for all eternity instead.”

Kerry nodded. Patti had evidently believed in the power of love and potions and portent, which came as no surprise to Kerry.

“I asked her to give me that one night if that was all we were to have. She didn’t answer, but she stayed. About thirty minutes later, she said she felt ill. That’s when she went in search of the restroom and ended up in the patio suite by mistake.” He glanced at her, then away. “You know the rest.”

“You left her for dead because you couldn’t face the scandal of being with Patti when you were supposed to be engaged to another woman?”

“It could have jeopardized my family’s position.”

Kerry exhaled slowly, carefully. The air around her seemed fragile, as if it might shatter if she moved too quickly or spoke too harshly.

“I don’t know about your fiancée,” she said, “but Patti was one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met. I’m not talking about her outward beauty, but the warmth and kindness she showed to me, a stranger, on my first day in New Orleans.” She recalled Atta’s words. “She had a good
soul, so why wasn’t she good enough for your family?”

“She had no money, no social standing and no political influence.”

The words came so readily to his lips that Kerry was sure he was quoting from his father’s many lectures on the subject. Gazing into his dark eyes, she felt a return of the pity and nodded.

Jason stood. “I thought I could have it all—love and marriage and approval. Funny thing, but they all came from different people when they should have come from one. I finally realized that only with Patti could I have had it all. By then it was too late.”

Kerry walked to the lobby door with him. They stood there as if facing an abyss that divided two worlds.

Behind them was the austere elegance of the hotel. It seemed to represent a time long ago, a time of grandeur, like the life Patti’s family had lived at Cordon Rouge.

In front of them was the busy life on the street, the modern world, a little commercial and crass, but also lively and rich with possibility.

Jason had a choice—step back into his family’s world and lose himself…or step forward into the bustling street and find a new life.

“I wish you well on your journey,” she told him. “Wherever it may lead.”

He surprised her by kissing both her cheeks. “Thank you for caring about Patti. I think you were the
only person in her life who didn’t fail her.” A muscle tightened in his jaw.

“I was only in her life for one day,” she reminded him.

He drew a deep breath as he gazed out the door. “I want to ask you something else. Where…”

After a minute of silence, Kerry intuitively grasped the question he couldn’t finish. “Matt and I scattered her ashes at Cordon Rouge, in the formal garden there.”

He nodded and left her, striding quickly along the street. She watched until he became lost in the crowd.

“Above all, I wish you peace,” she whispered. She glanced at the tiny thundercloud charm she was holding. “And healing for your soul.”

Then she quickly crossed the lobby and courtyard, heading for the one person she needed beyond all others at this moment.

K
ERRY GLANCED AROUND
the room. “That’s everything,” she said. She snapped the locks on the large piece of luggage, which would be checked at the airlines, and scanned the smaller case with her toiletries.

The bathroom and bedroom were empty of her things and had resumed a rather impersonal air. The concierge had shipped her gift basket home for her, so that was taken care of. She’d wanted it for sentimental purposes—a reminder of the champagne she’d sipped while relaxing in the tub, candles all around her, hearing a noise from next door, meeting Matt during the witching hours of that strange night…Twelfth Night.

She swallowed hard as longing threatened to overcome her. That would never do, not on her last day. She studied Matt, who sat in an easy chair, his attention on the screen of a laptop computer while he worked on his article about New Orleans.

He’d volunteered to drive her to the airport that afternoon after a late lunch. They had also had a late breakfast after a very personal leave-taking. They’d eaten at their favorite table in the courtyard.

She was going to miss those lovely, sunny mornings sitting outside, her heart purring like a happy kitten.

“Done?” he asked, his heavenly blue eyes looking up at her.

She nodded, unable to speak for a second.

“You can still change your mind,” he said as if the emotion that rose in her was visible to him.

“Charlotte gave me a rain check on another week here,” she told him, taking the chair on the other side of the table and sipping the cool coffee in her cup. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll come back next year and take in the Mardi Gras parade and parties.”

“That’s a thought,” he agreed, his manner relaxed. “Maybe I will, too.”

Her heart leaped at the possibility of being back in New Orleans with him. “So, are you staying the rest of this week?”

“Yes. My editor called and asked if I would check out a couple of new restaurants a friend mentioned to her before I leave. I’m taking you to one of them for lunch before we head for the airport.”

“Lucky you. I’m going to miss the warm weather. Sharon said it’s below freezing back home.”

He chuckled, clicked off the laptop and closed it. “We’d better go.”

As they made their way to the rental car, Matt pulled the large suitcase with the smaller case resting on top. She carried a sturdy shopping bag with the gifts for her family members tucked inside.

The charms on her bracelet tinkled against each other like tiny wind chimes. She inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of the river and salt marshes and the gulf beyond as the breeze caressed her face.

Matt stowed her bags in the trunk, held the car door for her and saw that she was safely inside before getting in and driving down the street, which wasn’t very busy.

“I hope things pick up at the hotel,” she said, glancing back once at the charming building. “This has been a difficult week for them.”

“The concierge said things were getting back to normal, but it’s his job to convince guests the hotel is in good shape,” Matt said in his deep, pleasant voice. “The Marchand family has certainly had its share of troubles of late.”

“And before, too,” Kerry told him. “There was Remy’s accident and Hurricane Katrina. Also, Charlotte said her mother had had a heart attack a few months ago. She’s been very worried about her.”

“You and Charlotte got to be friends,” he commented.

“Well, not really, but we did have coffee together a couple of times during the week. I liked her. And her mother, too. You remember Anne?”

“Yes. A nice lady. Here we are.” He swung the car into a small parking lot in an area of the city that had been rebuilt since the hurricane.

The restaurant had a bold color scheme and delib
erately brash attitude, a new, funky place for the young-at-heart, Matt told her.

During the meal, which was based around a tasting menu, there were long lapses in their conversation. Kerry couldn’t concentrate. Her emotions were too close to the surface to risk talking. When they at last departed for the airport, she was trapped between relief and despair.

“Well,” she said brightly when her luggage was checked and she clutched only the gift bag and her purse. “It’s been fun.” She gave a little laugh.

“It’s been wonderful,” he corrected, guiding her to a corner away from the crowd. “Do you have any objections to my calling you at home?”

“No. Of course not. I’d love to hear from you.” She gave him her most sincere look while her insides coiled into a tight ball.

“What about visiting? Is that out?”

Startled, she asked, “Would you want to visit White Bear Lake?”

He laughed and shook his head as if highly amused by the question. “I’d like to visit wherever you are.”

“Oh. That would be…”

Heaven.

Hell.

Pick one.

“…nice,” she finished.

His laughter rolled over her, through her, filling her with impossible yearnings.

She touched his cheek. “I couldn’t have made this
journey without you,” she said softly. “Never in my wildest imagination could I have come up with a fellow adventurer who was so right for the situation.”

“It was fated,” he told her without a trace of irony or sardonic wit. He took her hand, touched each charm on the bracelet, then kissed her gently, sweetly. “This isn’t goodbye, Kerry. I’ll call you.”

After he left, while she stood in the security line, she wondered if he would.

“S
IT STILL
,” Sharon ordered.

Kerry frowned in the mirror at her sister, who was being damn bossy while she put color highlights from a kit into Kerry’s hair.

“This is going to look so good,” Sharon assured her. “You looked wonderful when you came home from New Orleans. The sun streaks were great with your eyes. Sit still. I’m almost finished.”

Kerry sighed and kept her opinion to herself. Her birthday wasn’t until Wednesday, which was Valentine’s Day, but her parents were holding a birthday dinner for her tonight, Saturday.

For some reason, Sharon had gotten the idea to play fairy godmother and try to turn Kerry into a princess for the event. She yawned as she waited for her sister to finish.

Outside the windows of her cottage, the light glinted off a new snowfall, nearly blinding in its intensity. The sky was a brilliant blue.

Like eyes she’d once gazed into while making love.

She halted the thought as her heart speeded up to a painful pace. True to his word, Matt had called several times since their sojourn in New Orleans. In fact, he’d called nearly every night. If he didn’t call, he sent an e-mail.

Except he hadn’t done either the last couple of days.

She’d found herself hovering by the phone Thursday and Friday night, then had finally gone to bed, irritated with him for not calling.

However, she had to be practical. As she’d expected, the calls were tapering off. Maybe he would still invite her to New York.

If some of the magic lingered, they might exchange calls again for a while, but eventually they would drift apart. Their communication would come down to postcards from exotic locales where he was researching the new book he’d told her about. Perhaps he would mention someone interesting he’d met.

Ah, well, the life of a celebrity was a lot more glamorous than her life. Not that she wanted to change. She was happy in her job…and in her life… pretty happy…

“Okay, we have to let that stay on for twenty minutes,” Sharon said, checking her watch. “Let’s pick out something for you to wear. I can’t believe you went to New Orleans and didn’t buy one single outfit. That just slays me.”

“Hey, I bought those clothes you talked me into before I went on the trip.”

“Oh, let’s look at those. I want you to look really good. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”

Kerry threw a sofa pillow at her sister. “Thirty-five isn’t all that old.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m three years younger and I feel ancient.”

“Well, that’s because you’ve got kids,” Kerry told her with superior logic.

“Isn’t that the truth. By the way, they loved the gifts. Ian took the python photo to school for show and tell. The kids declared you and…what was its name?”

“Jolie.”

“Yeah, they thought you and Jolie were a great team. They decided
you
were awesome. I quote your nephew.”

Laughing, they went into the bedroom. After a thorough search, Sharon selected black slacks, a black fitted camisole with a built-in bra and a black-and-green cardigan to wear over it.

“That looks really good,” she said. “Informal but sophisticated. Chic.”

“Just the effect I was going for,” Kerry murmured facetiously. Right. For dinner with her parents.

Sharon seemed to think this was hilarious.

After a shower to wash the highlighter out of her hair, Kerry dressed and even put on evening pumps when Sharon insisted she needed them for the outfit.

Her sister also helped her with her makeup, adding a golden sheen over dark, smudgy shadows on her upper
eyelids and insisted she brush on several layers of mascara.

“Look,” Sharon commanded, turning her toward the mirror on the bathroom door.

Kerry blinked at her image. She looked different from her usual self and more as she had on vacation in New Orleans last month—smart and glittery, but mysterious, too, with a smile playing at the corners of her mouth…as if the woman who gazed back at her had a wonderful secret.

“T
HIS IT
?” the driver wanted to know.

Matt checked the address again and decided this was definitely the cottage where Kerry lived, just as Sharon had described it to him. The roads had been cleared of snow, and his driver had gotten them from the airport and over the county road without difficulty.

“Sure is,” he said, and handed the man a couple of bills. “No change.”

The driver nodded in pleasure at the tip.

Matt thought any amount was worth it to get here. The blizzard yesterday had been a worry, but he was here at last.

He was a little surprised to find he was nervous as he walked up to the front door, his luggage in hand.

If Sharon was wrong…if his own instincts were wrong…well, this trip was going to be a disaster.

He rang the doorbell and admired the pinecone-
and-dried-apple wreath on the door. When he heard footsteps inside, his heart went into overdrive.

When Kerry opened the door, all his muscles seized up and his heart skipped several beats.

“Matt!” she cried, her eyes wide and staring and utterly beautiful.

“My God,” he said, “you’re even lovelier than I remembered. And that’s a fact, not a cliché.”

“Matt,” she said again, blinking rapidly.

“Yeah,” he said in a very husky voice, “it’s me.”

“What are you doing here?”

He gestured toward his suitcase. “You said it was okay to visit any time I wanted. May I come in?”

She was charmingly flustered. “Yes. Of course. I’m so glad to see you…I don’t understand…uh, do you want to stay here? I have a guest room.”

A blush bloomed like a rose all over her face.

“But you probably have other arrangements,” she ended, giving him an anxious stare.

“No. I’d hoped you would invite me to stay.”

She stepped back so he could enter and closed the door behind him. He breathed deeply and caught the scent of cinnamon in the air and the familiar drift of rose blossoms from her favorite cologne.

He dropped the bag and gathered her close. “I knew I’d missed you, but I hadn’t realized how much until this moment.”

Unable to resist, he kissed her, and it was like every
dream he’d had for the past five weeks—no, better, because this was real.

Kerry was sure this wasn’t real, but Matt was here. In the flesh. He was kissing her as if he’d really missed her. And she was kissing him back.

“Matt,” she said at one point a long time later. “Matt.” That’s all she could get out, she was that thunderstruck by his presence.

When he lifted her into his arms, she held on tightly, then settled happily in his lap on the sofa.

“This is like a dream. Oh!” she said in alarm.

“What?” he asked, nuzzling along her neck and collarbone.

“Tonight. There’s a birthday dinner. At my parents’.”

She realized she didn’t want to leave home or see anyone else or have to make small talk.

“I know. I’m invited.”

He lifted his head and gazed into her eyes, which made her mind go hazy, like she was soaring into an endless blue sky. “You are?”

“Yeah. Is that okay with you?”

To her surprise, a sort of anxious look came into his heavenly eyes. She squeezed him as tightly as she could.

“Of course. I’m delighted, just surprised, that’s all—well, actually, flabbergasted,” she babbled, suffused with happiness she couldn’t suppress. “Oh, Matt, this is the best birthday present ever,” she assured him.

His laughter worked its usual magic on her. She glanced at the clock. They should be at her parents in forty minutes. With a fifteen-minute drive, would there be enough time to…?

She realized there wouldn’t.

“Uh, we need to leave in a few minutes. I’ll show you to your room.” She groaned. “I sound like the staff at the Hotel Marchand,” she said when he cast her a questioning glance.

Laughing softly, he followed her to the guest room and left his bag there. She pointed out the guest bathroom and invited him to freshen up. Glancing at her reflection in the mirror, she realized her eyes were shining and her cheeks flamed with color.

Happiness, she thought. Having Matt here was the greatest happiness.

But when he leaves?
some part of her asked.

She shook her head. She’d think about that when the time came, she decided, and ignored the piercing ache at the thought of another parting. Going into her bedroom, she removed the charm bracelet from her jewelry box and fastened it on her left wrist. There, that felt right.

For an instant she stared at the intricate love knot ring nestled among her small collection of birthstones and costume jewelry. It seemed to glow in the lamplight as if bestowing a birthday blessing on her.